


not knowing

by ghoulgy



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Hedonism, M/M, Minor Violence, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Telepathy, bg kihyuk, hyumgbwon is a BOY!!!! who is also FISH!!! kkung is there also, vaguely shape of water inspired ??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16382255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulgy/pseuds/ghoulgy
Summary: He swallows the ocean, salt sliding heady down the back of his throat. It corrupts, turns sick and sweet, tastes of iron, pours over his eyelids, into his skin.He’s in the blood, it’s in him.Hyungwon pulls him out.





	not knowing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [floofsta_x](https://archiveofourown.org/users/floofsta_x/gifts).



> HELLO recipient .... can i just say.... all of your prompts were so tempting.... i ONLY picked this one bc >shape of water adjacency . i had a whole thing plotted out for the joohyuk one but like i couldnt NOT write siren-esque hyungwon 
> 
> i hope you like whatever this is !!
> 
> i have a playlist for this fic !!!!!!! its [good](https://open.spotify.com/user/husbandodestroyer/playlist/60E1ce10xrQyzO6FqwQc4B?si=HJopgw3qQMObbDfxI4rmJg)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> kat..... set... sumi.... u all make me wanna keep writing thank you. thank youx10000

It’s a Tuesday when Changkyun sees him for the first time, through a slit in the old wood of the shed where he’s being kept.  
  
His neck is long, head thrown back carelessly, black hair in knots behind his ears. He looks at Changkyun, and even upside down, Changkyun can imagine what kind of a picture his features paint when they’re righted: cheek bones high and dainty, lips a squiggly line. He waves. Siren scowls and sticks his tongue out, says nothing.  
  
That’s the first time.  
  
Before, Changkyun had only heard of him, of how he’d bite at fingers, snarl aggressively at guests. He’d assumed that was part of the act, the mystery of it all.  
  
_Come see the Siren, child of the sea_ , the posters read. _Raised apart from human civilization, this freak of nature wants nothing more than to break free from his chains and lay waste to all we know and love._ _  
  
_ It hadn’t taken long for Changkyun to find out that Siren was different from the other sideshow attractions. Didn’t take him long to notice that the chains and cuffs were real, that he didn’t ever seem to leave his pen. That his handlers sometimes went in with buckets full of fish and came out with nothing but the bones.  
  
He’s the mystery that lives just one car down from Changkyun, the spectre that keeps him up at night.  
  
Changkyun’s work is simple: sell the illusion, make sure no one looks at any of the exhibits or performers too closely. Mostly, he works with the two headed cats, the strongmen, the sword swallowers. And it’s not like he doesn’t enjoy his work, it’s that none of it is exceptionally authentic. The actual talent works at the circus they travel with. The rejects get sent to the sideshow.  
  
It’s not not real, it just all feels more novel than impressive. Or, it’s a relic of a time long passed, when bearded women would strut across stages and muscled men would heft barrels above their heads.  
  
Those things happen here, Changkyun just thinks, maybe, the sideshow should have died out with the invention of the television.  
  
Anyway, the two headed cat isn’t real, just like how the skeletons they display proudly in dark rooms are carefully manufactured to appear supernatural. It’s just a tabby with a headband on.  
  
Siren, though, Siren’s different.  
  
“I told you,” Minhyuk grumbles through a mouthful of food. “You need to stop snooping around. You’re gonna get fired. Or worse, scolded.”  
  
Changkyun rolls his eyes. This is not advice he hasn’t heard before, Kihyun said the same, throwing him scandalized looks over a lump of particularly abused-looking dough.  
  
_No one asks any questions around here_ , he’d said, puffs of flour flying into the air as he beat the absolute living hell out of some very innocent biscuit batter. Changkyun resolved to never come to Kihyun for advice after that, as it really did seem to stress both of them out more than it ever helped.  
  
Nothing could ever stress Kihyun out more than Minhyuk, though, and Minhyuk tries his best to remind everyone of this fact on the daily.  
  
He’s doing it now, sending Kihyun unsolicited winks from across the mess hall tent.  
  
Kihyun just shovels mashed potatoes into his mouth and keeps his head down.  
  
Changkyun looks back down at his food. Blinks, sees Siren’s eyes staring back at him. And then, it’s like he’s in a fog, like a sheet has come down over his head. His hands itch, like he’s got his palms settled on the ghost of something important, like he’s trying to remember what it feels like to grasp cold hands in his.  
  
“He’s real, right?” Changkyun whispers conspiratorially across the table, careful to keep his sleeves out of his mystery meat pie. “Siren?”  
  
Minhyuk shrugs, attention back on Changkyun fully. He blinks, tilts his head as if considering something, then leans in further, breath fanning across Changkyun’s forehead.  
  
They must look very conspicuous.  
  
“I’ve heard,” Minhyuk whispers, “he likes eggs.”

* * *

 

The second time, Changkyun’s standing on his tiptoes, craning his neck to peer into the dilapidated house out behind the main tent.  
  
There’s bundles of spider webs, all gathered around the corners, and in the dark Changkyun thinks he might see some of them move.  
  
There’s movement from inside, too, a body shifting and twisting in a way Changkyun would have missed if his eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark.  
  
He taps on the wall. The body stills.  
  
He’s not sure if Siren is even looking when he holds up a hard boiled egg to a slit in the wood, it occurs to him that he might look exceptionally foolish from the outside: a boy pressing an egg to a wall.  
  
Then, a clicking noise.  
  
Changkyun can see the outline of his face now, but no details, nothing specific. Siren stares, tilts his head to the side slowly. Changkyun shakes his egg pathetically.  
  
He doesn’t remember how he makes it inside, how it was that he walked through the front door, ended up in front of a too-small bathtub with a too-large man twisted up inside it.  
  
The egg is gone and suddenly, everything feels hazy, like he’s seeing it through fog.  
  
_You’re new_ , someone says, and doesn’t say, because there’s no one speaking. _You brought a present._  
  
Changkyun takes a step backwards, but finds that the floor beneath his feet is moments from giving way.  
  
Siren is dangerously pale, his face painted white with what Changkyun can recognize as the color they smother the clowns with before they go on stage. The color they use to hide age, identities.  
  
The white does very little to hide the mottled purple and yellow bruises that line Siren’s jaw, his eyes. It does little to hide the texture of his skin, smooth in some places and ridged in others.  
  
_Are you here because you think you can save me?_ Siren’s lips quirk up into a wry smile at Changkyun’s panic. _Or did you just want to look?_  
  
“I just thought,” Changkyun grumbles, pauses, realizes he hadn’t really thought much of anything through, “maybe you could use some company.”  
  
Siren’s smile turns disbelieving then, but he’s still clearly amused, laughter bubbling up out of his chest, something creaky and broken.  
  
_You feel bad for me._  
  
Changkyun shakes his head, knows that with absolute certainty that this, at least, was not about pity.  
  
_You want to help me._  
  
The words are warm, inviting, they echo around in Changkyun’s skull, try to convince him of their merit.  
  
“Are you trying to hypnotize me?”  
  
Siren’s smile slips from his face, replaced quickly by a displeased scowl. He reaches out, then, swipes a chained hand at Changkyun’s chest. It connects, we watches the claws drag through the fabric of his shirt, but he doesn’t feel it.  
  
“Am I dreaming?” Changkyun asks.  
  
_You and I both know I’m not supposed to answer that question. It defeats the purpose._ _  
_ _  
_ “Should I go?”  
  
_I’ll let you go when I’m done with you_ . Siren sighs, shifts to his side in the bathtub letting water slosh to the floor with his movement. He’s half limp, he looks so tired.  
  
Changkyun wants to wipe the makeup off his face. So, he reaches down to.  
  
There’s something about how he looks, all curled in on himself, damp and cold, that makes Changkyun forget about the missing fingers, about the fish bones.  
  
His hand passes right through Siren’s cheek.  
  
“Ah,” he says. “I’m dreaming.”  
  
Siren shakes his head frantically. He points at himself, then at his head. _It’s in here._ He points at Changkyun’s forehead and Changkyun lets his eyes cross to follow the motion. _Could be in here, too. But not a dream. A dream would be nicer._ _  
  
_

“Why do they call you Siren?” Changkyun lets himself ask, then, because it seems appropriate. And because he itches to know all there is to know about the boy in front of him.  
  
_My name is Hyungwon._ He motions down at his legs, nearly human aside from the smooth, amphibious skin there. _I am not a siren._

* * *

 

“Have you got any more?” Minhyuk asks, sending Changkyun a _look_ over his shoulder, arm outstretched. His face is half-painted, the white of it making him look more a fool that he does usually. Changkyun supplies more paint from his bag after some fumbling.

It’s calming, almost, watching Minhyuk paint over his cheekbones in wide, long strokes. The covering of something, or the reveal of something else - it’s unclear where his fascination lies.

“You look so silly,” Changkyun says, because it’s true, and because it makes Minhyuk tense his shoulders.

“That’s the _point_ ,” he hisses, but the smile is still on his face. “You think Kihyun thinks clowns are sexy? _Can_ clowns be sexy?”

Changkyun shifts in his chair, looking around to make apologetic eye contact with the other performers.

“Don’t be like that,” Minhyuk waves his frayed paintbrush in Changkyun’s direction. “You’re an expert on weird fetishes. What with the fish and all.”

“He’s not a fish,” Changkyun says.

At this, Minhyuk flings the brush at Changkyun’s midsection. “How would you know? You didn’t actually go down there, did you?”

Changkyun’s face must betray him, because Minhyuk stands up so suddenly he sends his chair flying backward. “ _You bastard,_ and you weren’t going to tell me. I can’t believe you weren’t going to tell me.”

“You kind of have a big mouth.”

“ _Yeah_ , I do,” Minhyuk whisper-yells, leaning in close - his visage making it hard for Changkyun to take him seriously. “That hasn’t ever stopped you from telling me secrets before.”

Changkyun shrugs. And Minhyuk is standing at his knees, waiting for more. This felt like a secret he was holding onto, and now that it’s out, well… “He’s… nice? I don’t know how to explain it. I wasn’t there long.”

“Then when are you going back?”

* * *

It’s night again when Changkyun traipses through the grass that grows up to his knees to find Hyungwon. He brings another egg.

He’s there in front of the shed for a moment, and then inside - and then in front of a boy.

 _Ask me what I am,_ Hyungwon says after a moment of stunned silence on Changkyun’s part.

Hyungwon procures paint out of the air, smears it on his cheeks - eyebrows drawn together in concentration. He’s hiding something Changkyun can already see.

“What are you, Hyungwon?” The name feels odd on his tongue, he tastes it, how heavy it feels to finally have a name for the thing that used to be a curiosity.  
  
_I am a captive._ Hyungwon nods, eyes slipping closed. _I think I know how to escape._ _  
_ _  
_ It occurs to Changkyun that he might not even know what he is, he might be as in the dark as the rest of them.  
  
“Am I involved in this somehow?” He crouches down to be at eye level with frog boy, furrowing his brows when Hyungwon leans backward.  
  
_You ask so many questions._ Hyungwon rolls his eyes, sends a wave of water in Changkyun’s direction, but it doesn’t connect. _Of course you are. Why do you think I brought you here?_ _  
_  
“Because I’m nice to look at?”  
  
_Because you want to help. I know you do._  
  
“Do tell me more about myself.”  
  
_Okay._ Hyungwon’s cheeks puff out and at the edges, his makeup cracks. _You’re dreaming_ .  
  
And then, Changkyun is outside again, laying on the grass. His egg is crushed beneath his body. Everything feels so wet.  
  
Changkyun thinks he can hear the creaking laughter of Hyungwon enjoying himself far too much.

* * *

The water pulls Changkyun under easy and then not, in sequence. He catches flashes of memories - a bright red cloak - the charred remains of split reel - the foot of a bathtub, cracked and covered in moss - but he’s unable to piece together a coherent story from them, as fragmented as they are.  
  
It’s too much at once, the scenes hold too much within them, Changkyun can barely keep his head above the water.  
  
He’s thrust into room after room along with the wind blowing through the leaves of houseplants, the water dripping down gutters.  
  
He swallows the ocean, salt sliding heady down the back of his throat. It corrupts, turns sick and sweet, tastes of iron, pours over his eyelids, into his skin.  
  
He’s in the blood, it’s in him.  
  
Hyungwon pulls him out.  
  
_Just focus on one of them at a time_ , he says, standing over Changkyun as he gasps for air.  
  
Changkyun holds up a finger. _One minute_ , he motions and Hyungwon sighs, places his hands on his hips and Changkyun is back outside, laying in the grass again, Hyungwon still laying limp in the bathtub in a room Changkyun will never experience, not truly anyway, not in any way that matters.  
  
“You make it sound so easy,” he calls, feeling the ground beneath him vibrate along with the words in his chest. He can see the stars here, beyond the roof and the tent, they speak of boys with feet too big for their bodies, of falling down, picking yourself back up.  
  
_It should be._

* * *

The first time Changkyun gets stuck in a dream is weeks later, after they’ve moved to another city halfway across the country.  
  
The shed, though, the shed is nearly the same. The doors stay in place, the handcuffs locked tight.  
  
The dream he gets stuck in - the first one - has him young, on the floor, struggling with the laces on his new shoes.  
  
_How old are you here?_ Hyungwon asks, barely contained smile altering the shape of his lips.  
  
“Maybe… two?” Changkyun replies. He remembers this day, fumbling with his own fingers watching his mother make dinner in the other room. “I was a handful.

 _I’d say_ , Hyungwon snorts, but his eyes are full of a light Changkyun’s only really seen a few times. 

Like a few weeks ago, when he’d gone back and shown Changkyun the time he sat by himself in front of a TV watching Rocky Horror Picture Show until the wee hours of the morning. His mother had been there, in the memory, but she remained at the edges, cut out to show precisely enough of what Hyungwon had wanted to convey. That he had family, that somewhere out there, someone was waiting for him.  
  
_Why here?_ Hyungwon asks, and if Changkyun didn’t know any better, he’d think he nearly felt his hand as it brushed across his shoulder.  
  
It’s a good question. He catches a glimpse of Hyungwon in the spoons atop the dining room table, his eyes blown comically wide. This day had been like many others before it, it is not special in and of itself. Although, then, there’s the kettle on the stove, there’s his mother’s feet, just at the corners of his vision. There’s the knowledge that this is the last day of its kind.  
  
He knows what happens tomorrow.  
  
“She’s so happy.” Changkyun leans against the edge of the dining room table, doesn’t slip through it because he’s been getting better.  
  
Hyungwon walks into the other room, to where the edges blend together, where the countertops turn to crosshatch and the floor drops off into the sea.  
  
He can hear it now, the ocean.

 _We’ll come back_ , Hyungwon urges, reaches for Changkyuns hand like he wouldn’t have already grabbed it if he could. _I promise._

He nods.  
  
The sea, standing beneath them as a tie between this world and the next, churns restlessly. All it should take is a step and then they will exist within the static only, turn back to what they know to be true. Changkyun should end up back in the grass, back soaked, fingers numb.  
  
The ocean takes them, throws them into the kitchen where Changkyun’s mother watches a pot of water boil over helplessly. She flicks the stove off.  
  
“Sweetheart,” she says, “time to go.”  
  
Changkyun looks at Hyungwon, whose brows are furrowed in confusion. The paint at his cheeks is cracking off, flaking to the ground. “Shouldn’t I be gone?”  
  
_No_ , a smile creeps onto Hyungwon’s face, his nose scrunching curiously. _If you didn’t want to be here we wouldn’t be._  
  
It’s then that Hyungwon makes a grab for Changkyun’s wrist, wrapping his slim fingers around Changkyun’s pulse.  
  
He feels it, he can feel it, in that moment: Hyungwon’s cold hands, claws digging into skin.  
  
_You feel me?_  
  
“I-I’m not sure,” Changkyun lies.  
  
_You do. I can feel you,_ Hyungwon’s eyes go wild, and, then not. There’s some hope buried underneath the fangs and the mottled skin, Changkyun can feel it travel up his arm, back down his spine to his feet. You want to stay.  
  
There’s a second where Hyungwon stands there, smile pressed tight against his teeth - stifling something. For a second, Changkyun thinks he could stay. If he just pressed himself forward, surged into Hyungwon like the tide, he could make something here, forge something new.  
  
He pulls backward, bumps into the table as he makes his way toward the sea. Hyungwon follows.  
  
Changkyun sees his mother with her hands on her hips, the fabric bunching at her waist. She taps her foot, the sound sends him reeling.  
  
“Time to go,” she says, this time louder, infinitely more stern.  
  
The last thing he feels as the water pulls them both under is Hyungwon’s breath on his neck.

* * *

It takes Changkyun a few weeks to understand what it means when he breathes out and it still feels like there’s air left in him. It’s almost like an emptiness, a space that will never be filled, that can’t be, not really.  
  
The lamp at his bedside flickers on and off. He still sees the shape of it when it’s out, the bulb burning its way into his vision.  
  
It’s like that when he closes his eyes, too. He can see the outline of Hyungwon’s hand wrapped around his wrist. He can see the tile floor of his mother’s house. He can feel wet hands on his skin.

It’s weeks later still when Changkyun works up the courage to go back and maybe it was half out of shame that it took him so long. It was so easy for him to mistake hope for something else in Hyungwon’s eyes.  
  
“I keep thinking about you,” Changkyun starts without preamble. He’s barefoot in the grass tonight, because he felt like it, and because it seemed appropriate. “Is that just me? Do you make everyone feel like this?”  
  
Hyungwon’s form stirs, as if drifting out of a deep sleep.  
  
_Like what?_ his voice comes after a pause.  
  
“You know.” Changkyun kicks the wall, frustrated with himself, with how he can never quite say what he means. “You have to know.”

He closes his eyes and there it is again - tile floor - a hand on his arm - an anchor - something to hold on to.  
  
_I’m not a mind reader._  
  
In the dark, they are nothing. The lightbulb behind Changkyun’s eyelids does little to help illuminate how close they may be - or how far away. He wishes his burned retinas were useful for anything at all.  
  
“Take me to where you’d like to stay,” Changkyun says, then, in lieu of an explanation.  
  
Hyungwon, mercifully, doesn’t ask for one. Just drags him along to the sea.  
  
They’re standing toe to toe when Changkyun opens his eyes.  
  
He sees Hyungwon’s nose, and then his cheeks, registers belatedly that the cracks are absent today, that what he’s seeing is bare skin, scales, and a row of teeth pressed into a bottom lip.  
  
_You say anything about my face and I launch us both into the moon_ . Hyungwon’s hands are fists at his sides.  
  
They’re on a beach littered with debris from the ocean. They’ve washed up here, or found themselves here, and the sun is still so low in the sky.  
  
Morning, Changkyun realizes, it must be morning.  
  
He gets the distinct feeling that this is the before for Hyungwon, too. Where he’d like to stay, if he could.  
  
The bruises lining Hyungwon’s throat aren’t quite yellow yet. Changkyun doesn’t say anything about Hyungwon’s face, wants to desperately, but contents himself with lifting a hand to his cheekbone, finding solid skin there, warming it.  
  
He stares because he wants to, and because he can’t help it.  
  
“What was before this?”  
  
Hyungwon looks down at their toes, where their feet are bare, where phalanges wiggle in the sand.  
  
_Home. But this, this is better, this is where I want to stay._ _  
  
_ Dream kissing doesn’t work exactly the same as real kissing, but Changkyun finds that he doesn’t mind. That the barriers between them don’t exist here, that he can run his hands through wind-blown hair, pull at the knots, rest his hands at the base of Hyungwon’s neck. Breathe.

He feels it all.

* * *

There’s one time Changkyun shows up when Hyungwon isn’t expecting him.

He is laying on the floor, he is bleeding, Changkyun isn’t sure if he’s being let in or if he was pulled in, if this despair does nothing but consume. It’s a memory, and it’s not, because the Hyungwon outside is on the floor, too, is covered in these same bruises. This isn’t anywhere like where they’d both like to stay.  
  
_This pain isn’t worth anything_ , Hyungwon says, projects almost, because Changkyun almost believes him. _I’d rather not feel at all._  
  
And because they don’t want to stay, Changkyun can’t pull Hyungwon up from the floor and dust him off.  
  
“I know it hurts,” Changkyun says. He brings a hand up to where Hyungwon’s face is, hopes the gesture is enough.

He doesn’t say much after that, because what else is there? He wants to hold Hyungwon through the shaking.

 _It’s better here_ , Hyungwon says, blinking up through the tears, through the webs they have created in his vision. _I don’t ever want to leave._

* * *

And then, in his own dreams there's the bathtub - the red cloak from before - the split reel, still alight.

It could mean something, or nothing at all. He does know that one of them makes it real.

In the dream, he touches the fire, the reel turns to ash, Hyungwon is there - encouraging the burn. It's like, then, the thought that he'd pull Hyungwon out if he could, or the fire, the water. He'd take his place.

So, in his dreams he lives in a bathtub, Hyungwon watches him through a slat in the wood. He holds an egg up, swallows it whole. 

* * *

 

Minhyuk is kissing Kihyun behind the mess tent. Changkyun can see white paint on his nose, on Kihyun’s. He probably should have seen this coming, though he hasn’t really been paying the two of them any mind as of late.

It doesn’t feel real - the two of them, together like this.

Really, none of it does. Not his own skin, not the grass between his toes, not his friends - inches apart, breathing hard.

They’ve got nothing between them, not the sun, not the layer of atoms separating all things.

Does it hurt? He wonders, to be so close to someone you love? He examines his hands.

He examines the grass.

He feels like he’s missing something.

* * *

 

The second time Changkyun gets stuck in a dream, it really isn’t his fault.

“Be careful,” Minhyuk warns, waving a chicken finger recklessly in Changkyun’s direction. “I know what you’re up to, I can see how stupid happy you are.”

It’s lunch, but Changkyun doesn’t remember waking up that morning, doesn’t remember anything about what the day has held.

This is the second time.

“Just what is it that you think I’m up to?” Changkyun asks, finding himself vaguely annoyed at the assumption that he’s doing anything dangerous here.

Minhyuk doesn’t answer, just shrugs. Which is both like him and not.

“How’re things on the Kihyun front?” Changkyun rolls a straw between his hands and sighs.

Then, there’s Hyungwon at the end of the table, head resting in one hand casually, as if he belongs there. _Who’s Kihyun? You’ve never mentioned him._

Changkyun reels backward, falls out of his seat, whips his head around to see if anyone else is seeing this, but the rest of the world has gone to crosshatching, static, blank space. Noise.

The straw is still at his feet.  
  
It takes a moment to recover from the shock of being thrust out of a moment that hard, Changkyun stares upward, at a ceiling that does not end.

“Kihyun’s a friend.”  
  
_I can make him, too,_ Hyungwon says. _If that makes it more real for you_.

Then, they’re back on the beach, the tide creeping in, pouring over their toes.

It’s cold, but he can’t feel the water, not really. It means he won’t stay, he wonders if Hyungwon knows yet.

“I think,” Changkyun starts, reaches for Hyungwon’s shaking hand, then pulls back. “I prefer the real one.”

 _What does that matter?_ Hyungwon reaches out now, too, and his hand passes right th rough Changkyun’s wrist. The shaking only gets worse. Like he’s trying to hold on with all his might, like everything will slip away the moment he lets himself relax. _Does Kihyun always make you happy?_ The water is up to their thighs now.

“No, but he’s not supposed to,” Changkyun reasons.

The sky above them lacks a sun, but it’s not night.

 _I can make him nicer. I can make it so no one ever hurts you. We can live in here_ , Hyungwon says as he takes Changkyun’s hand and it feels like they’re treading water, like they're going to have to stop soon. Like he’ll go under any minute, like he’ll never come back up.

“This isn’t real.” Changkyun reaches out to touch the side of Hyungwon’s face. He sees the scales, sees the skin and the condensation, but there’s nothing there, nothing under his fingertips. “This isn’t a place.”

_I can make it one._

But even as he’s saying it, Changkyun can tell he doesn’t think it’s true. He knows he can’t keep them here, can’t make Changkyun stay.

“You keep asking me where I’d like to stay,” he takes a moment to study Hyungwon’s face, how afraid he looks, how vulnerable. “I think the answer is probably with you.”

_Then do._

* * *

 

A pair of hands meet through a slit in the vinyl siding of a rotting trailer. The sun isn’t quite out yet, but it could be, if they wanted.

It’s early morning.

The sink is leaking, the noise of it percussive. It's one way to track the passage of time.

Down the hall in the bathroom, a tub is overflowing, is cracked at the bottom, is growing moss. Inside, two bodies are at rest, or they’re wide awake.

They hold on until they can’t any longer. And then for a bit more.

**Author's Note:**

> this was weird ! let me know what u thought?????
> 
> ive been talkin about writing mx fic since 2016 .... so here we are
> 
> catch me on twt @ booseoks!!


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